By Paul Suellentrop
 

In 1955, Lew Merriman went to a graduation party at Lake Afton with friends from East High School as a student headed to the University of Wichita. That day, he started on a path that made him an All-American runner, took him to Madison Square Garden and within a second of the 1960 Olympics.

Merriman, a member of the 2026 class of the Pizza Hut Shocker Sports Hall of Fame, did not play any sports during his time at East High.

"I came from nowhere," he said. "I am 100 percent a Wichita University product."

As a Shocker from 1956-59, he won two Missouri Valley Conference titles and finished fourth in the 880-yard dash at the NCAA meet in 1959. In 1960, he won the half-mile run in the New York Athletic Club games at Madison Square Garden. He finished fifth in the 1960 Olympic Trials to miss a spot on the Olympic team by a half-second.

Merriman's path from nowhere started at Lake Afton. During the party, a friend asked him to go for a run. Merriman doesn't remember why. He assumes he wore shorts and shoes comfortable enough to run in. He impressed his friend, who ran at East.

"He wanted to do some running," Merriman said. "When we got done, he said 'You should go out for track. You're running this way too easy for a guy that hasn't been running.'"

The idea of a scholarship appealed to Merriman. He met new Shocker coach Mel Patton, a two-time Olympic gold medalist who appeared on the cover of LIFE magazine in 1948.

"He was a charismatic guy," Merriman said. "I was very impressed. Next thing I know, I'm getting books and tuition."

Merriman's complete lack of experience in track – or any other high school sport – didn't hold him back. He figured out the 880 was his ideal distance quickly. He won the MVC title as a sophomore in 1957 with a time of 1:55.9, fourth in conference history at that time.

"(Merriman) has natural ability he is just finding," coach Fritz Snodgrass (who replaced Patton) told the Wichita Eagle. "For only having one year of experience, he is an excellent competitor."

He finished second in the MVC in 1958 and won it the next spring. He remembers training during the winter on a rubber track that ran around the concourse at what is now Charles Koch Arena.

"I think I just had a natural talent," he said. "I was lean and light. I was pretty quick, but I wasn't real fast."

His personal-best time of 1:50.4 in the NCAA meet in Nebraska vaulted him into the Olympic picture.

"That was my first national-level performance," he said. "That's where my numbers started to get competitive with the best in the country."

He ran a 149.1 in an exhibition race in the fall of 1959 to qualify for the Olympic Trials. Early in 1960, he won the Matt Halpin half-mile run in the New York Athletic Club games at Madison Square Garden with a time of 1:53.8. In July, he headed to Palo Alto, Calif., for the Olympic Trials. He ran 147.8 to tie for second in his semifinal. The next day, he ran a 147.9 to finish fifth and miss a spot on the Olympic team to two runners at 147.5.

Runners stayed in the dorms at Stanford and Merriman remembers not getting much sleep because athletes who finished their competition stayed up late.

"I hardly got any sleep," he said.

While missing the Olympics stung, Merriman looks back on the times in Palo Alto and realizes he ran in a strong field. His time of 147.5 in the prelims would have finished fourth in the Rome Olympics. His times indicate a runner reaching his peak and he thinks he could have competed in Rome.

Merriman briefly tried to continue his running career into 1961, but his job took away from training. He soon retired from the sport.

"I was close to being a lot more successful than I realized," said Patton, who lives in Kansas City after retiring from Proctor and Gamble. "I was running against some of the best competition in the world."

Pizza Hut Shocker Sports Hall of Fame weekend 

 A dinner is set for 6:00 p.m. on Feb. 13 at the Aetna Multipurpose Center at Charles Koch Arena, while the induction ceremony is scheduled for halftime of Wichita State's Feb. 14 (6 p.m.) men's basketball game against Tulsa.
 
Cost for the dinner is $50 per person, and paid reservations can be made online at goshockers.com or by calling the Shocker Ticket Office at 316/978-FANS or in person at the WSU Ticket Office located on the south side of Charles Koch Arena.
 
The addition of this year's class brings the total of former coaches and student-athletes in the Hall of Fame to 168, while there are 14 at-large selections.